Monthly: December, 2017

I am writing this almost 24 hours after the release of Ludum Dare 40 results, and my rating, as always, is somewhat surprising to me. I’m going to try to break it down a bit.

The raw numbers do not tell the full story, so I’ve created a chart that shows where I placed in each LD, along with my finishing percentage. What it shows is that I consistently place above the middle of the pack (40 – 50%), with some results as high as top 30%.

With the exception of Audio (always my weak spot), my results are equal or slightly better than LD39, and that’s good! I know that the rating results are highly subjective, but my expectations were that I would place a little higher.

Looking back at my last 3 LDs, I believe that I have greatly improved my game development skills, even though the scores do not really show that. My first 3 LDs are somewhat of an experiment in Game Jams. Starting with LD38, I started to really focus on bells, whistles, and polish, in addition to game play. More sounds, more graphics (even though my graphics talent is severely limited), more effects. The chart above does seems to show that, and I am glad.

In Summary

I am both very critical and very defensive about my games, and my expectations never match what the results show. That’s a “me” problem.

I’ve always thought that several of the LD games would make a good stand-alone game if I continued development, but the scores seem to discourage me from doing so. I have had an idea I have been working on several times over the years and ANTagonist may fit that theme. Regardless of the results, I may continue development. I am just not sure at this point.

Another Ludum Dare, and another game submitted… that makes six for me, but this LD was one that I will remember for a long time. So many highs and lows. Of course, we should begin at the beginning, but I will begin before the beginning if that makes sense.

The Week Prior To The Dare

I saw that the theme “The More You Have, the Worse It Gets” was listed in Round 3 of Theme Selection. Where did I see that before… oh, yes, that was mine! I suggested that! I entered that one and one other, and was surprised to see it make it that far, but there was no way it was going to make the finals, right?

It made the finals, but no way was it going to win, right? When I saw the theme announced I was floored! I felt pride, and nervousness because even though I suggested the theme, I have absolutely no idea what game to make.

Friday Evening

After about an hour working through some ideas in my head, I decided on a game where ants try to steal your food. My original thought was you go to a supermarket to bring food to your house and the ants steal it from there. I put together a basic game screen, some player and insect AI code, and called it a night at 02:00 Saturday morning.

Saturday’s Sinking Feeling

Not much sleep… I got up around 05:30 Saturday morning, got a coffee, and hit the computer. I decided that the house and supermarket concept was not good, and decided on a picnic theme… seems to make more sense. I fired up Photoshop and created a picnic blanket, ants, food plates, and a player.

Animation and gameplay was working, but I was just not happy with the game… it just didn’t seem fun to play. Also, for some reason, I spent way too long trying to get joystick movement and firing to work properly, so I am now far behind where I wanted to be at this point. It’s now late in the afternoon, and I have very basic game that is not fun to play.

The combination of feeling incredibly tired and frustrated was a major demotivation factor. Somewhere around 17:00 Saturday afternoon, it hit me hard. I was so close to just shutting down Unity, grabbing a beer, and watching some television. It was so hard to motivate myself to continue, but I know that if I decided to bail out, I would feel even worse. I would rather submit a low rated game than give up and not submit anything. I took a bit of a break to regroup, and sat back down and worked on it for another 5 hours that evening hoping to put something together that was playable.

Sunday’s Revelation

I woke up Sunday still very discouraged. I sat down to start and all of a sudden, I was hit with a wave of creativity.

I spent the rest of Sunday implementing these features, and after every one that I finished, I saw that the game was becoming more and more fun.

Submission time. It’s later than I like to do this (about 2 hours to the end), and of course Unity is giving me build errors! I rebuild and import everything and get it out with less than one hour to spare.

Development Details

I used Photoshop and Paint.Net to create the graphics. I am not a good artist, but I tried to create something that I felt was at least usable. The animation of the ants is very basic, but I think they work in this situation. I swap back and forth between two sprites. For the player, I created a few levels (head, body, and arm) and I animated each one through three arm positions. If you look closely, you will see a bit of a head bob effect when running.

I created the bug zapper and bug bomb using Photoshop and placed a particle object behind it. For the bomb, I used a smoke effect, and for the bug zapper, the kept the particles tight for a glow effect.

For sounds and music, I used bfxr and Otomata. Since I lost a lot of time before, I really didn’t have time to create and tweak the sounds and music much, so when I found something that worked, I used it. Given more time, I think I would have replaced some of that. I’ve been told that the music is a bit on the crazy side, and I am ok with that, since I wanted the music to reflect a high level of stress as the ants attack.

There are a couple of things that need some improvement. Some of the ant AI could be tweaked (although I do like the intensity). For joystick mode, I used 8 directional firing, but I think a full 360 degree fire range would be better.

Conclusion

It is incredibly difficult to continue working on a game you feel is not up to your standard, but once Sunday arrived, and I had a decent amount of rest, things started moving in the positive direction. I really enjoy ANTagonist in its current form, and I hope you do too. It definitely did not start out that way, and Sunday was the turning point for me. As always, I am considering continuing development, but I want to give myself a bit of time before I decide either way. I guess it depends on my final rating and user comments.

I’m in the process of working on my Post Mortem for my Ludum Dare 40 entry, ANTagonist. Meanwhile, here are a couple of videos. The first one is some game play, and the second is my Timelapse of development.

Well, 24 hours in and I do have a playable game. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I am not sure how I feel about it at this point. I guess the work I do tomorrow will make or break it. Either way, I am going to submit it at the end of the Dare.

The basic idea is that ants are stealing your food, and you must kill the ants and return the food to your picnic blanket.

Tomorrow will be LOTS of polish, sounds, music, and game play improvement.